5 Things IT Department had to skip in Recession

In last blog, we have talked about the 5 items IT department must do even in the big recession, in addition to the things we can't do without, there are many more things we had to skip. We are not exactly happy to stop doing these things but desperate times cry for desperate measures and since these activities are something we can do without we had to either quit them, or drastically reduce them:

• No purchases of new hardware. Though it is not precise to say that we haven't bought a single piece of hardware in the last year, we have definitely cut hardware spendings. For the time being we do not plan to make major hardware purchases.

• Capital expenditures. Capital expenditures are another budget item we had to drastically shrink. We had schedules projects but the current economic situation made us have second thoughts and now capital expenditures are on hold.

• Software that is nice to have but we can do without it. Similarly to hardware and capital expenditures, some major software expenses had to be cut. Yes, there are many products, for instance accounting, HR, or ERP modules, which are great to have but we'll go for them when the economic outlook is less gloomy.

• Standardization. You know that IT people generally hate when they have to deal with bureaucracy and standardization, so if there is an item, we are happy to skip, this is standardization. More or less we skipped all standardization-related activities except those, that are related to regulations compliance. Standardization is put on hold, especially if it requires investment or other resources.

• No infrastructure upgrades. We are not exactly happy about this one but since there are more important items we can't skip, we had to significantly reduce the planned network upgrades. Some of the projects in this area are put on hold, while others are canceled.

It wasn't easy to decide what to skip and what to keep but when times are tough, it is not possible to pretend that everything is OK and go on as planned. We hope that we are right in our choices and time will show if we did wise choices or not.

James Ackland is Author of this article from www.Colasoft.com.

About Colasoft Co., Ltd.
Ever since 2001, Colasoft has been dedicated in providing all-in-one and easy-to-use packet sniffer software for network administrators and IT managers to monitor network activities, analyze network performance, enhance network security, and troubleshoot network problems. Up to now, more than 5000 customers in over 70 countries trust the flagship product – Colasoft Packet Sniffer as their network monitoring and troubleshooting solution. Colasoft also offers four free network utilities: Colasoft Packet Builder, Colasoft Packet Player, Colasoft MAC Scanner, and Colasoft Ping Tool. Learn more about Colasoft and its solutions, please visit http://www.colasoft.com/.